Slow Cooked: 200 exciting, new recipes for your slow cooker (39 page)

Put the oats, golden syrup, salt, and ginger in a bowl and heat for about 20 seconds in the microwave. Alternatively, use a spoon you’ve heated in boiling water to pour the syrup into a bowl and melt it enough to mix in with the oats.

Core the apple, either with a corer or by hollowing the core out with a teaspoon. Place it on the liner or greaseproof paper and then pack the oats into the empty core. Or if using the fruit, seeds and nuts, do the same with them.

Put the lid on the slow cooker and cook the apple on low for 2½–3 hours, depending on the size of the apple. Lift the liner out and then serve the apple.

I like the granola version with some cream or plain yoghurt, but the fruit-and-nut version is amazing with some homemade dulce de leche. I prefer the apple to be tart and to add sweetness to taste rather than pack the apple with added sugar.

Do you remember how fruits of the forest used to be the thing in yoghurts and desserts? Then they just went out of fashion and I miss them. So when I saw that you can buy a frozen fruits-of-the-forest berry mix in some supermarkets, I had to do something with them. Drizzle in a little bit of vanilla, cook it all down and you’ll have no trouble getting your five a day with these beauties. I like to serve with yoghurt or granola for breakfast, but it also makes a stunning dessert served with the Poached Meringues
here
.

SERVES 4

400g fruits of the forest or cherries

1 teaspoon cornflour

100g sugar

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

If you are using fresh cherries, you should definitely remove the stalks, but leaving the stones in will add extra flavour if you don’t have time to pit them.

Put the fruits of the forest or cherries in the slow-cooker crock, adding any juice they give out. Sprinkle the cornflour over them along with the sugar and the vanilla extract. Put the lid on the slow cooker and cook on low for 5–6 hours until they are almost jammy round the edges.

Eat with porridge, yoghurt, over vanilla ice cream or make a pie with this compote. The little bit of cornflour thickens them just enough to make sure you don’t lose a drop of the fabulous juice the fruits give out.

These meringues are usually seen served on custard as the classic French dessert
île flottante
and they are light and delicious at the end of a meal. They are also incredibly easy to make in the slow cooker and can be cooked in advance to really impress people with your culinary skills.

SERVES 4

2 egg whites

100g caster sugar

1 teaspoon white wine or cider vinegar

About 45 minutes before you want the meringues to be ready, half fill your slow-cooker crock with hot tap water and put the lid on. Turn it to high and leave it to come to approximately 80°C, which is the perfect poaching temperature. If you have a thermometer, don’t miss the chance to play with it here to test the waters. Otherwise, just trust me. It works.

Separate your eggs and put your egg whites in a clean and grease-free bowl. Using an electric whisk, beat them for 1–2 minutes until they are quite frothy looking.

Start adding the sugar a spoonful at a time, beating as you go. This gradual addition of the sugar helps make the meringue glossy and gorgeous and allows lots of air to get in there. Whisk for 5–6 minutes until the egg whites are in stiff peaks and you can hold the bowl upside down for a second or two without them sliding onto the floor. Add the vinegar.

Take the lid off the slow cooker and add dessert spoonfuls of the meringue. You should be able to get four in there at a time. Replace the lid and cook the meringues on high for 15 minutes. Because of the steaming action of the slow cooker, you don’t need to turn them like you do when you poach them on the hob.

After 15 minutes they will be firm to the touch and puffed up. Remove them from the crock with a slotted spoon and dry them off on a clean tea towel or muslin cloth. Keep going until you have as many as you need.

The meringues can be kept chilled for up to 24 hours and are served cold. The sweetness is perfect with the Fruits of the Forest Vanilla Compote (see
here
) or other berry compotes, but if you’d like to try the
île flottante
, then use the custard recipe for the Crème Brûlée
here
. Chill and serve the meringues on top. Simple and stunning-looking.

While you can’t beat a banana as the ultimate quick snack food, sometimes they deserve a little more attention to turn them into a delicious dessert. Everyone loves these and they are incredibly easy to make. Serve them just as they are or, if you are feeling especially extravagant, drizzle a little bit of chocolate sauce over them too.

SERVES 4

4 bananas

25g butter

4 teaspoons brown sugar

Peel the bananas and lay each one on a rectangle of tin foil. Put a quarter of the butter and a teaspoon of sugar on top of each one. Wrap each banana up so it is completely enclosed.

Put the bananas into the slow-cooker crock. If you are doing more than four, you can do two layers.

Put the lid on the slow cooker and cook the bananas on low for 4 hours. Remove the bananas from the crock and carefully open each one. The butter and sugar will have cooked down into a simple and delicious toffee sauce.

Serve the bananas with the sauce over the top. Some ice cream doesn’t go amiss here either.

There really are no words for how much I love crème caramel. I was always fascinated by those little pots of it when I was a kid, which you were supposed to upend and then pull the little silver tab off to allow the caramel to pour out over the wobbly crème. I could never wait and just dug straight into the pot with my spoon, pouring the caramel out onto it when I’d eaten the custard. As I got more grown-up, I occasionally treated myself to the posh ones in glass ramekins and ate them more slowly. Then I learned how to make them myself and life became a million times better.

Do not think about making this with skimmed or semi-skimmed milk or it won’t set properly and will collapse on itself if you try to turn them out of the ramekins.

SERVES 4

120g sugar

60ml water

generous pinch of salt

400ml full-fat milk

3 eggs

25g caster sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Start by making the caramel. Put the sugar and the water in a stainless-steel pan (non-stick pans can make the caramel crystallise and become granulated). Melt the sugar over a medium heat, stirring constantly.

When the sugar is completely melted, stop stirring and allow the caramel to boil to a dark, rich colour. Keep a close eye on it to make sure it doesn’t burn. It should take about 10 minutes. Remove from the heat immediately. Add the salt and stir in.

Pour an equal amount of caramel into 4 ramekins and set aside to cool and harden. Don’t put them in the fridge or the caramel becomes soft and tacky. It will take about an hour for the caramel to set.

When the caramel is set, brush the inside of the ramekins with a little bit of flavourless vegetable oil to allow the custard to slide out more easily. Set aside until needed.

To make the custard, warm the milk in a pan over a low heat. While it is coming to a simmer, beat the eggs in a bowl with the caster sugar until they are thickened. When the milk is warm, pour a little bit of it into the eggs and whisk. This tempers the eggs to stop the custard splitting.

Pour the tempered eggs into the remaining milk and whisk together. Heat gently until the custard coats the back of a spoon. Remove from the heat immediately, add the vanilla extract and pour the cooked custard into the ramekins, leaving a few centimetres for expansion.

Set the filled ramekins into the slow-cooker crock and pour enough boiling water into the crock to come about two-thirds of the way up them. Put the lid on the slow cooker and cook the crème caramel on high for 1 hour.

Lift the crème caramels out of the slow cooker. There should be no bubbles round the edges. Allow the crème caramels to cool for an hour or so and then put them into the fridge overnight. This means the caramel will absorb into the crème.

When you are ready to serve, simply turn the crème caramels out onto small plates and eat. These are so much better than the milky, jellied versions you can buy in a supermarket and you’ll want to make them time and time again.

While I do love a good crumble, my American Studies degree made up for repeated readings of
Moby Dick
by introducing me to the all-American dessert of cobbler. Best described as a sweet scone dough combined with fruit, cobblers are warm and comforting. They also work surprisingly well for breakfast, which you can’t say about the humble crumble.

This cobbler is inspired by a recipe from American blogger Joy the Baker. She used brown butter and plums, but it was all a bit sweet for me, so I’ve used sharp rhubarb, tweaked the sugar levels and added creamy evaporated milk before part baking, part steaming it all in the slow cooker. It’s very easy. Don’t skip the browned butter though. Joy was right about its nutty goodness making life itself better.

SERVES 4–6

125g salted butter

125g plain flour

75g sugar

250ml evaporated milk

1½ teaspoons baking powder

4 stalks of rhubarb, cut into 4cm chunks

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Set the slow-cooker crock on a sheet of greaseproof paper and trace round it. Cut the shape of the base out and then cut two long strips of greaseproof paper about 10–12cm deep that will go round the walls of the crock. Brush the inside of the crock with a little bit of oil and then press the paper inside so it sticks to it. Or if the
Blue Peter
feel doesn’t appeal, use a sheet of reusable baking liner.

The butter is the star of the show here. Cube it, put it in a small pan and, watching carefully the whole time, heat it over a medium heat. It will crackle and snap as the water evaporates and the butter turns brown. As soon as the noise stops and the colour changes, take it off the heat. There is a fine line between brown and burnt. Leave aside.

Mix the flour, sugar, evaporated milk and baking powder together in a large bowl. Bring together with a spoon, add the cooled brown butter and mix until you have a thick, puffy batter. Drop the chunks of rhubarb and vanilla into it and mix well.

Pour the batter into the slow-cooker and cook on high for 3 hours or low for 5 hours. It will form a lovely crust on the base and become softly puffed up on top. Lining the crock allows you to lift the cobbler out if you want to and cut it into slices to serve or you can simply scoop it out and not have to soak the crock for ages.

Note:
You can use apples or plums or a mix of fruit for this if you don’t want to use rhubarb. Halve the plums or quarter the apples and follow the instructions as above.

I am the least musical person on earth, as anyone who has heard my attempts at violin playing will know. Yet crème brûlée makes me want to burst into song. I could wax lyrical about the contrast between smooth, creamy custard and the crunchy sugar topping, but I’m not going to. I’m just going to order you to make it in the slow cooker immediately. Not only is the slow cooker the perfect water bath, it makes custard so luxurious you’ll actually want to bathe in it.

The day I learned how easy crème brûlée is to make was actually quite dangerous because I’m tempted to make it any time I have cream in the house. Luckily everyone else thinks it’s quite tricky, so you can really impress them by making it any time. Scale it up or down using one egg yolk to 100ml cream and you can make one large dish instead of individual ramekins if you prefer.

SERVES 4

400ml double cream

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

4 egg yolks

15g sugar

pinch of salt

4 teaspoons demerara sugar

Heat the cream and the vanilla extract in a small saucepan, but don’t let the cream boil. It should be just warm enough to dip your finger in without burning it.

As the cream heats, beat the egg yolks with the sugar in a large bowl. Add the pinch of salt and then carefully pour a splash of the warmed cream into the egg yolks. This tempers the eggs and stops them scrambling when you make the custard over the heat.

Pour the tempered egg yolks into the remaining cream and heat gently over a low heat, stirring all the time. The custard is ready when it coats the back of a spoon or spatula. Don’t let it boil.

Remove the custard from the heat and pour it into your ramekins, making sure it doesn’t fill them past any lip or rim the ramekins have. You could also use a ceramic serving dish if you are making one large crème brûlée.

Set the ramekins into the slow-cooker crock. Carefully pour in enough boiling water to come halfway up the sides of the ramekins. Put the lid on the slow cooker and bake the custards for 1 hour. Lift the ramekins out carefully as soon as they are cooked; allow to cool completely. They will keep for 2 days in the fridge like this.